CHICAGO, Ill.—The University of Illinois Board of Trustees today approved naming a new dining hall and future residence hall complex on the Urbana-Champaign campus after Stanley O. Ikenberry, the University’s 14th president.

Ikenberry, who was U. of I. system president from 1979 to 1995, was one of the three longest-serving presidents of the University of Illinois. He also was the 10th president of the American Council of Education from 1996 to 2001.

Work began in December on the $75.7 million project that will replace Peabody and Gregory Drive dining halls with Ikenberry Dining Hall. The facility’s seating capacity will be 1,172 people. In addition to new “marketplace dining” that will offer different cuisines at food stations, there will be a central location for student organizations, a learning center with study space and computers and multipurpose and recreational rooms in a new residence hall wing.

The residence hall wing will house 150 residents, including students with physical disabilities currently housed in Beckwith Hall. The new facility is scheduled to open fall semester 2010 and is the first phase of a long-range plan to replace the existing undergraduate residential halls in the area bordered by Gregory and Peabody drives on the north and south and Fourth and First streets on the east and west. The new residential complex and grounds, to be designated Stanley O. Ikenberry Commons, will house more than 3,000 students.

Ikenberry Dining Hall will be located at the corner of Gregory Drive and Euclid Street in Champaign. It will feature energy-efficient systems that are expected to earn the building a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) silver certification.

Chancellor Richard Herman said honoring the former University president and first lady with the new dining hall and commons recognizes the contributions they are still remembered for on the Urbana campus.

“Stan led a number of academic initiatives that greatly benefited our campus,” Herman said. “Much of what this wonderful university is today can be traced to President Ikenberry’s visionary work on behalf of the University of Illinois and its students.

“This first phase of residence hall replacement also provides us with the opportunity to offer fully accessible dining and residence hall facilities to our disabled students together with the larger undergraduate population in the heart of the Champaign neighborhood,” Herman said.

President B. Joseph White said the dining-residence hall project was of an appropriate scope to honor Ikenberry and recognize the former president’s leadership and the high regard in which the University and the community continues to hold him and his wife Judy.

“Stan Ikenberry was a strong leader for the University of Illinois and for higher education nationally,” White said. “He and Judy both cared deeply about the U. of I.’s students, so naming the new dining hall and home for our undergraduate students for him is particularly fitting.”

Ikenberry was U. of I. president when Board of Trustees Chairman Lawrence C. Eppley was earning his three degrees at the University’s Urbana-Champaign campus.

“President Ikenberry led the University of Illinois system in a period of strong growth and expansion,” Eppley said. “He led the consolidation of the Medical Center and Chicago Circle campus that transformed the University of Illinois at Chicago into a major urban public research university with a strong commitment to the health and well-being of Chicago’s citizenry.

“He also worked to improve the quality and diversity of the student body with the establishment of the President’s Award Program for low-income and underrepresented groups of students,” Eppley said.

Among Ikenberry’s other accomplishments as U. of I. president were initiatives including the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, both at the Urbana-Champaign campus.

Ikenberry is the immediate past chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Earlier, he led the boards of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, the Association of American Universities and ACE.

Before coming to Illinois, Ikenberry was senior vice president of Pennsylvania State University and was a professor in the Penn State Center for the Study of Higher Education. Ikenberry is currently U. of I. Regent Professor and President Emeritus. He maintains an office in the College of Education on the Urbana-Champaign campus and also holds an appointment with the University’s Institute of Government and Public Affairs.

Ikenberry received a bachelor’s degree from Shepherd College in Shepherdstown, W.Va., in 1956. He earned a master’s degree and a doctorate from Michigan State University in 1957 and 1960, respectively.